Whoever you grew up with, whether it was your parents, grandparents, or someone else, really aren’t to blame. They were there to provide you with love, support, and affection because they wanted the best from you.

However, they probably weren’t economists. They weren’t visionaries who could tell you what the future economic climate will look like. We should respect our elders for their experience, but we need to re-evaluate what they told us, for the world is changing rapidly.

Here are a few things our parents told us in the 90’s that we must re-evaluate:

1. Get a job.

Yes jobs are out there, if you know where to look, but a lot of quality jobs have a high level of politics attached to them. In Robert Kiosaki’s Rich Dad series of books, he said the end goal in getting a job was to make money. When your parents told you to get a job, what they really wanted was for you to do was make money, and they thought that getting a job was the only way to do this.

Instead of learning how to get a good job so we can make money, how about we just learn how to make money? Learning about appreciating assets, interest rates, smart vs. faulty investments, and how to, legally, reduce the amount of taxes you pay is a lot more beneficial than creating the perfect cover letter.

If we were educated on the intricacies of making and managing money from an early age, the 3 words “Get a job” might start to have less relevance, and the idea of finding a boss to work for would slowly start to disintegrate.

2. Get an education.

Education is important, because many companies will not even look at you unless you have a Bachelor’s degree or higher. However, our parents told us to go to college and get good grades, so, eventually, a respectable company would hire us because we have that university education. Once again, the end goal in all of this is to make money from that job, which we got from a good education.

We need to re-evaluate an education because college tuition is about $30,000 per year. Multiply that times 4 or 5 years, and you’re over $100,000 in debt before you hit 25 years of age. Your college financing will most likely come from student loans, which you will probably be paying back for 20 to 30 years. Student loan debt is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and something that only increases with each new semester.

College provides you with experience and a focused skill set, yet lots of people forget what they learned in college. Seriously, do you remember any of the complex math equations, history lessons, or English rules that your professors tried to drill into your heads? We learn all of this formal stuff, yet we forget it because we don’t love it.

Perform well in school, but also learn about what you are really interested in, and what a formal education can’t tell you. Become an expert in your passion, whether it is programming, investing, sports, engineering, art, or whatever else. If you love it, you will remember it a lot more, and have a great skill set to take with you.

3. Finish your dinner

Ok, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t eat. I’m saying to be careful of what you eat. Lots of food in America is now processed food. It is processed because you know who controls the food consumption in this country? Corporations. And what is the purpose of a corporation? To make money.

Classic economics: Create something for cheap, and sell it at a high profit. That is what the companies who control the food are doing. Cows, plants, corn, and almost everything that we put in our bodies has been sprayed with so many pesticides and made so cheap that it’s amazing there is any nutrition left.

Here’s a personal story. I was in Argentina playing basketball, when one day I went for a walk around the city. I walked for hours all day. You know what I saw? Barely any overweight people. You know why? Because the food they ate was quality food. In Argentina, the meat they eat is fresh, real food. They don’t have the companies who process the food for the masses. They have meat and food from the earth, with nutrition that humans were meant to have.

We may think we are better than the earth because we build large buildings and we flew a space shuttle to the moon. But our bodies still need real nutrition from the earth to be properly sustained. Yes, we can eat processed food to fill our tummies, but when the slow wave of obesity creeps up on us, we will already know why.

4. Listen to your teacher

Your sweet 5th grade or high school teacher was great, but they were misinformed.

In high school, I loved how many times my classmates would ask the teacher, “Why are we learning this?” Or, “When are we ever going to use this in real life?”

You know what they said to that? “Get back to your work.”

They knew a lot of what they were teaching wasn’t practical, and couldn’t be applied in the real world. But, what were they going to do? Tell you it’s not practical, and you will never use it? If that got back to the school administrators, that teacher would be fired. That teacher didn’t want to be fired. They liked their job, their benefits, and their students.

Blind loyalty to your teacher, or anybody for that matter, is a recipe for disaster. Your teacher may be an expert on a topic, but still challenge what they say. They hate when students do it, but it is important. If you blindly agree with everything your teacher says, without thinking about the rationality or accuracy of it, you may be misinformed your entire life. Listen to what they say, but also re-evaluate it to see if what they are saying is the truth, or outdated.

To be continued…

Tyson Hartnett has played professional basketball in Sweden, Argentina, and Chile, and has recently started his first business, BasketballTrainingClub.com. He created Basketball Training Club to try to help players from all over the world not only better their basketball games, but to try to help better their lives as well.

Tyson Hartnett is in the midst of creating his first book about his experiences playing professional basketball overseas, and all the struggles that young athletes may experience. To get updates on the release date and book excerpts, check out HoopDreamsFulfilled.com.

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Liz Flores

Really liked this post, and made me laugh because it certaintly brings back memories. I grew up with verrry strict Mexican/Cuban parents so respect your elders and never question them was always taught, don’t show any emotions because you need to be tough, and avoid mistakes at all costs. Cant wait to read the next post!

Julie M Holloway

Love it! HILARIous #entrepreneurshipRocks

Michael Luchies

This is great! Very smart post.

I think ‘get a job’ is finally starting to lose its’ power, but it has been a long run. There are still parents encouraging their children to get jobs instead of working on starting something for themselves/following a passion…etc.

#2. With MOOC’s and other online tools, we can get basically the same education we get at a university online.

#4. Is important and not stressed enough. It is a slippery slope because we need teachers and we need to respect them…but at the same time..some of the worst things I was told and taught came from my grade school teachers. (I once had a teacher tell our class that if they ever had to ask how much something was, including a car, then that meant it cost too much).

Can’t wait for part 2!

Schwartz

Do you even know any teachers? It takes a lot more for a teacher to lose his job than making a smart remark to a student, even when the remark gets back to the leadership. And teachers “like their students”? ha. haha. hahahahaha. Maybe your teacher thought what they were teaching WAS valuable and you just haven’t learned the practical applications because of your particular career path.

Kevin Diamond

Awesome post! I love the concept of the importance to learn but always “re-evaluate”. Great to see you have found a way to utilize your passion as a revenue stream! Cant wait for #2

Tyson Hartnett

Schwartz, thanks for the comments. this was meant to open people’s eyes a little bit. All teachers come in different style, shapes and sizes, and everybody has their own experience. A lot of what they taught us we will forget, and a lot of what they teach doesn’t have much practical application. I’m sure it is valuable, but practical, is what we must question.

Tyson Hartnett

Thanks a lot liz. We get taught lots of these things at a young age then must un-learn them as we get older. it’s a tough process, and something that keeps a lot of us back. I know in some spanish cultures, like yours, you must be very polite, and address your elders with “sir” or “ma’am”, even if they’re your parents. Things that, to other new age cultures, is very different

Tyson Hartnett

Thanks kevin, it’s an on-going process. the first thought for this was “doesn’t apply”, but i realized all this stuff really does apply, but we must question what they put in our young minds

Tyson Hartnett

Thaks alot michael. things, especially education, is changing at such a quick pace. but the education process is still years behind, and will be even more years before they actually catch up. It’s like kids go into school, into a new dimension with overhead projectors and 400 page textbooks, then come out into the real world with ebooks and instructional ipad apps and game. And, a “job” will always be relevant, but it’s what you do for the job which we must evaluate

Tyson Hartnett

Thanks Julie! #yourock

https://www.facebook.com/michaelamushe Michael Amushelelo

How still wants to get a job? =D

Bickson Gangata

Great stuff and looking forward to the next post

http://www.callboxinc.com/ Belinda Summers

Yes. I personally agree with you @Tyson Hartnett:disqus. What taught in school are all theories and even applied on some activities there’s still a lot of difference between ‘school’ and work, the playground and the ‘real thing’. There’s more to learn than bookish stuffs.

sherry762

what Janice answered I am stunned that anyone able to get paid $4807 in 1 month on the computer. my company w­w­w.J­A­M­20.c­o­m

http://www.transpiral.org/ Yasmine Khater

I totally love this!! this is fabulous! Especially that parents are always right, and get a job and a degree…things have changed so much!

Sherry, thanks so much for this. I’m sure everybody will go to this website now.

Tyson Hartnett

Yes I think we must question what they say. I don’t think the younger generation gets enough credit for their intelligence

Tyson Hartnett

Thanks a lot Belinda I completely agree

Tyson Hartnett

Thanks bickson!

Tyson Hartnett

Yes definitely!

http://www.mileshrconsulting.com/ Tmm04

Wow, you have some interesting ideas. I’m not sure I can agree with them but at least it started me thinking. Here are some thoughts off the top of my head:
1) if no-one wants to work for someone else, then who is going to do all the work? Seriously, I truly want to know how else will our world operate? Who will drive buses, who will clean hospitals, who will be the person who designs and builds things we need and so on? Also don’t you need to make money to be able to reduce your taxes? So how do you make it without a capital investment and where do you get that money from in the first place?
2) I don’t think you should wholly discount education. I believe lots of college and university programs teach viable skills – like apprenticeship programs. In addition, education isn’t always about learning a tangible skill – it’s about learning soft skills which we all need in order to be able to co-exist with others (communication, teamwork, how to analyze and make decisions). I know you can learn these skills in other ways, I’m just saying that for some people, formal educational programs work out just fine.
3) Agreed.
4) Some rather sweeping generalizations in this section. Naturally there are many teachers who welcome challenge and even encourage it from their students. And some aren’t that great – kind of like there are good bloggers and bad bloggers. I agree with you that blind loyalty isn’t good in any situation, work or school (that’s why it’s called blind!). I refer you back to my point in #2 whereby practical isn’t always the point of learning. When you learned to play a video game was that practical? Maybe learning how to play a video game helped you learn spatial reasoning or strategy so it might have been useful without being practical.
You make some good points in your article, I suggest you could benefit from more analysis and research. Best of luck to you!

Tyson Hartnett

Tmm, thanks for the long comment. I feel appreciated
1.) I know jobs will be around forever, but I think we get brainwashed from an early age to “find a job”, then we don’t get creative. a lot of our mindsets are just to work for someone, when if we really think hard, we can possibly work for ourselves.
2. Definitely not discounting education. It’s important for sure. University degrees are important. yet, sometimes people will go to a college just to go. and a lot of that material is outdated. For example, a lot of schools talk about creating a business plan, with 3 and 5 year goals, etc. Now, it’s important to just have a business concept. we can’t really predict anything nowadays, so thinking that we can is a recipe for disaster.
3. Cool.
4. could have definitely done some more research, etc., but this was just to get us to think about what we were told and to question it. there are definitely an infinite amount of teachers, each with their own style, but I remember most of mine just being there for the paycheck, and do what the cirriculum said. they didn’t really answer our tough questions, and that kind of made me mad, and reduced the value of their information. I’m just thinking that we should challenge things, and make it our own, instead of blindly listening to other people even though they may be older than us.

http://www.transpiral.org/ Yasmine Khater

for sure and i think our parents dont really understand the extent of how much things have changed

Tyson Hartnett

They will act like they do, or say that things haven’t changed at all. then, we have the option to either 1. school them, or 2. accept and agree with what they say. So I think the choice has a lot to do with what culture you are in, if you want to be respectful to your parents, or if you can openly talk to them. but, things will continue to change, and the younger generation is definitely more adaptable

http://www.transpiral.org/ Yasmine Khater

well my mom is in her 60ties! and we are close, we talk about everything and she is still always right I think it also depends on the personality as well